When I joined Persistent Systems on 4th July 2005, I expected to spend 1 or 2 years in Pune and then switch to some other company to be back in Mumbai. Little did I know, that my relationship with Persistent would extend to 20 years. And that I would end up moving my home base to Pune! Here’s to looking back with gratitude to all that I got to do at Persistent!
Projects
I’m glad that I got to work for a variety of interesting customers including
- One of the Big 4 Banks in the US.
- A start-up with an employee count of just 1 (the founder).
- Another start-up whom we helped to get acquired by a hyperscaler.
- A leading tax-preparation software vendor.
- Worked on a product in partnership with Apigee (and then Google). This also led to my YouTube debut live from Apigee’s office at San Jose.
- Worked on Persistent’s own product “PaxPro”.
- Got to work in the Research Department of a customer in the Silicon Valley and then again in Persistent with a remarkable CTO.
I donned multiple hats during this tenure. I went from JSP Dev to ClearCase Admin to JavaScript Dev to Java Dev to Java Lead to QA Lead to DBA to API Architect to Cloud Architect to Enterprise Architect to Product Manager to GenAI Architect.
Fun
Made a bunch of friends. Mentored a lot of kids. Went for a lot of team outings.
Came dressed as Batman to office and won the Cosplay competition.
Performed a short mimicry bit in the auditorium.
Received a lot of love from my kids. They planned a surprise birthday celebration for me in office.
They covertly named their hackathon team after me (even though I was not part of it)
Today’s cake surprise from my kids in office.
Tech Highlights
- Did some cutting edge work for none other than AWS that led to the then-CEO Adam Selipsky give a shoutout to Persistent during the prestigious re:Invent keynote.
- Led the team that created WingMate – Persistent’s own GenAI coding assistant.
- Cleared a bunch of certifications across AWS, Azure, GCP and conducted sessions and created content to help others do the same.
- Got to interact with leaders from several of our customers in our Customer Experience Center. Got engaged in hundreds of GenAI related customer threads in the past 2.5 years. Explore a lot of uncharted territory.
- Secured the top rank (AIR 36) from Persistent in TechGig’s CodeGladiators 2019
- Led the Persistent team with Keyur Shroff to win the TechGig Coding Powerhouse 2022 title.
- Represented Persistent at HIMSS ’16 at Las Vegas.
- Helped conduct Persistent’s TechMela twice where we showcased cutting edge technology to our leadership (including the CEO below) and sought feedback.
- Was invited by AWS as a speaker at 2 Amazon Q Partner Events.
- Conducted a few internal as well as external sessions (with Nasscom and others) on Gen AI.
- Conducted Persistent’s annual hackathon Semicolons 2025 with the rest of the Semicolons Core Team.
- It was a special joy to step back and let the young leaders that I’d trained launch Persistent’s AWS User Group.
- Launched Persistent Community for our inter-company QnA.
- Played a key role in defining the GenAI curriculum for Persistent and helped put together our “AI Academy” with the LnD team.
- Got to be a part of Persistent’s Technical Advisory Council, ChangeMakers and Policy Council.
- Poured out my heart into my first book – Excellence (available via Amazon in 14 countries). Was honored to have Persistent’s Founder Dr. Anand Deshpande’s foreword and my then-boss and ex-CTO Dr. Pandurang Kamat’s praise-note as part of my book. (Psst! Second book titled “Agentic AI Demystified” is coming soon!)
Had the privilege of having my book awarded as the prize to the winners of a hackathon.
- Got to make friends with folks outside of India as part of my overseas stint. (Wait a min, what’s this weirdo holding in his hand?)
Grateful
Looking back I’m grateful to God for blessing me with projects that challenged me, managers that mentored me and team-mates that helped me. I’m thankful that I got to build a lot of excellent software. But more importantly I’m thankful that I’ve had the privilege of raising excellent software engineers. Several of them have grown into leaders themselves. Overall, it’s been a thoroughly rewarding journey. Thank you all who have been part of this journey with me!
